Long Week

Last week started out as usual with a nice Mellow Monday ride, followed up the next day by a nice Tuesday levee ride and then a pretty fast WeMoRi on Wednesday. Thinks went downhill from there, though. 

Arriving home Wednesday morning I learned that my father had been taken to the hospital around 6 am with blood in his stool. I jumped into the shower and then headed over to Touro hospital to meet my sisters Patty and Ginger. 

By mid-day they had found and presumably fixed a duodenal bleed, so we all breathed a cautious sigh of relief. I went by the hospital briefly that evening for a quick visit where they were giving him a second bag of blood. By 1:30 the next morning the hospital called. He was in the ICU having difficulty breathing, feverish, and presumably septic. He'd just been in and out of the hospital a couple of weeks prior with a UTI that required a stint and a lot of antibiotics. The hospital advised us to come to the ICU because it was not looking good. They worked all night to support his falling blood pressure and administer antibiotics, and by early morning he seemed just a little bit better, but that was probably because of the norepinephrine and vasopressin. Soon, however, they resorted to straight epinephrine as well. Jay was on his way down from Jackson by then. An hour before he arrived around 1:30 pm it was becoming obvious that we were running out of options and that dad was in kidney/organ failure. Lactic acid was off the charts and prepared ourselves for the inevitable. He passed away around 2:30 pm that day at 95 years old with his four children at his side. We'll have a memorial service on May 13 so that most of the grandchildren and great grandchildren who are scattered across the country can attend. 

We spent a long time at Lake Lawn funeral home on Saturday morning making arrangements, but by afternoon the weather was nice enough that I went out to the levee for a somewhat windy ride out to Ormond and back. Sunday was a regular Giro Ride, still windy. There's a disturbance in the Gulf just south of us now and the weather is going to be sketchy for a while. 

On Monday the streets were wet and there was a mist falling, so I aired up the tires on the old Pennine and went for an easy ride on the levee. At least it was as easy as it can be on a full-fender bike in a 10 mph wind. Tuesday morning's levee ride was equally windy and with only three of us continuing beyond Williams Boulevard we decided to turn around at The Dip which cuts out eight miles. Nobody complained about that. I ended up having Candy drive me to work and back because the forecast was showing nothing but rain all day, which of course meant that it never actually rained. This morning I woke up to wet streets but, looking out the window it didn't look like it was actually raining. I kitted up and stepped out the door and immediately felt the heavy mist that was falling (and was showing up on radar). I briefly contemplated riding in it but ultimately decided it just wouldn't be worth it. Again, the forecast was predicting rain all day but I rode to work anyway and I don't think a drop has fallen yet as of 4 pm. More rain is in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning, so odds are we will eventually get something.

In the meantime I got the event permit and BikeReg pages done for the Tour de La coming up on June 3-4, and people are beginning to register for the TT championship that will be on the 30th of the month. The Time Trial is pretty simple, so assuming we get a few volunteers and the weather is OK, that shouldn't be a problem. The Tour, however, is an entirely new thing this year. We'll be doing everything on the southshore, there will be a circuit race on Lakeshore Drive instead of the long road race, the TT will be on Lakeshore Drive immediately following the road race, and the criterium will be in Chalmette on Sunday. GC will be based on points rather than time, riders won't have to ride all three stages, etc. There are still some loose ends to tie up for both venues, and as usual there's no solid sponsorship in place. I'm just hoping we get a good turnout since there will be few valid excuses for the local riders this year!